We stared at each other. Centering myself, I pushed my senses outward, feeling for magic.
“Oh, stop that!” She waved her hand in front of her face as if swatting a fly.
“Stop what?” I asked innocently. But my magical probing hadn't turned up anything unusual.
“What are you doing in my yard?”
“I told you, I heard a scream.”
“Well, no one is screaming here, Miss.” She shuffled forward, crowding me.
“And I wanted to talk to you about Mr. O'Hare and Mrs. Raven, and why they're really here.”
She shook a gloved finger. “You're asking dangerous questions, but at least you’re finally asking the right ones.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You always say vague stuff like that, and you never give me any real answers.”
“You're the one who's supposed to find the answers. And get off my lawn. You’re putting holes in it with those ridiculous boots. How do you girls stand in those things without breaking your ankles?”
I looked down. The lawn was spotted brown, but yep, there was a lawn, and my heels were sinking into it. “What do Raven and O’Hare want?”
“You already know. They're watchers.”
“They're not here to watch the birds, so what are they watching?”
She raised a gray brow.
“Doyle?” I asked.
“Obviously. And?”
“And… me?”
She sniffed. “Don't be so arrogant. You've got two equally interesting sisters, who are, by the way, sadly falling down on the job.”
“They are not! What job?”
“The job you've taken on. The job only you three can do. Or at least, I thought you could, until Karin moved to Angels Camp. I’m beginning to doubt her dedication, but motherhood changes one’s priorities.”
“What do you know about what's happening in Doyle?”
She pumped another puff of white onto a yellow rosebush. “What do you know?”
“I asked you first.”
“I'm an old lady. Don't play games with me. And get out of my yard!” She jabbed me with the bug sprayer, leaving a dot of white powder on my vest.
“But who are Raven and O'Hare? What are they? Do they work for the government?”
She laughed. “The government? What use are they? Do you think a hoard of agents are going to come running to the rescue whenever someone dies? It's all the sheriff can do to keep a lid on things. It's seriously cutting into her crime-solving abilities.”
“Keep a lid on things? So, she knows?”
Her eyes narrowed. “After your performance the other night, you have to ask?”
My face heated. I had sort of blabbed about the magic to the sheriff. But McCourt hadn’t really reacted.
“Sheriff McCourt knows something's wrong with Doyle,” the old lady said. “But I'm not sure she believed your explanation.”
“How do you even know about that? We were alone in her car!”
“The first Queen Elizabeth was once painted in a golden gown covered with eyes. Do you know why?”
“Because her eyes were everywhere. She had spies.”
She nodded. “Not just any spy, John Dee, a magician spy.”
“So, what are you saying? He used magic to spy? Did you use magic to spy?”
She bent, pumping the sprayer and vigorously coating a pink rose bush in a cloud of white. “At any rate, in spite of your irresponsible blathering, I’m uncertain the sheriff understands exactly what’s going on.”
“And what do you understand?”
“What do you understand?”
“Oh, come on! Why can't you just tell me?”
Mrs. Steinberg folded her arms, and the tip of the sprayer bumped her chin. She snorted and jerked the copper container downward.
Enough games. I'd tell her. I'd told other people. If she thought I was crazy… Well, the whole town thought she was nuts, so who'd believe her? “Fine—” My throat closed. Completely. A strange croak emerged.
She snorted. “Excuse me? Did you say something? You’ll have to speak up.”
I clutched my throat and drew a shuddering breath, tried again. Nothing came out. What the hell?
She yawned. “This is getting tiresome, Miss Bonheim.”
“Why can't I tell you what I want to tell you?” Ha! At least that last bit came out okay.
“Because we're on opposing sides, dear. Did you really think I speak in riddles for fun?”
I rubbed my throat. “You mean, you have to?”
She nodded. “We’re opposites. Like O'Hare and Raven.”
“Wait. O'Hare and Raven are on opposite sides from you? Or from me?”
She released a gusty sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“You're friends,” I said slowly. “Or you work together. Or you're on the same side, because I've seen you talking. You know each other.”
Her mouth compressed.
“But we're not on opposite sides.” My gaze clouded. “You've helped me.” Sort of. She'd provided hints, that hadn't really gone very far, but always made sense after the fact. “And you're helping me now.”
“I don't think so.”
“You are! You want to tell me something. But… you can't? Because we’re opposites?” What did that even mean?
“I have no idea what you're talking about, and my feet are cold.” She stomped toward an arched, sky-blue door.
“What about Mathilda?” I asked. Mrs. Steinberg was a major snoop. She might have some intel on that at least.
She turned, one hand on the ornate doorknob, the other gripping the copper sprayer. “What about her?”
“Mathilda was rich. Or she would have been if she'd lived to see twenty-five next month. She thought her stepmother, Lydia, was taking money from her trust, illegally.”
“That girl had no sense of gratitude. The young are all alike. Lydia loved her stepdaughter, but Mathilda was too wrapped up in herself to see it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I believe that. Lydia seemed genuinely upset by Mathilda’s death, and now someone’s killed Lydia. The murderer could have been Paul Neumark, Mathilda's ex-boyfriend. He's obsessive, or he was obsessed about Mathilda. She got a restraining order against him. Paul even did a little stalking of me. But I saw him with Judge Longway minutes before I found Lydia's body, so he couldn't have done it. Lydia died right before I walked in the door. Paul wouldn't have had time to kill Lydia and then get to Antoine's with the judge.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” My throat squeezed, painfully tight, and I grimaced. Not being able to talk about magic with her was really annoying. “Because there were, um, witnesses outside Lydia's house at the time of the murder.”
“Then the sheriff should talk to these witnesses.”
Good luck sitting the virikas down for an interrogation. “She can't. They're very secretive and can't— won't come forward. But they always seem to show up right when someone is dying.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Well, yeah. That's what they do. They're kind of experts on the moment of death.”
“One of your assumptions is off, and it has led to several flawed conclusions.” She pushed open the blue door.
“Which assumption?”
She stomped inside and slammed the arched door shut.
“Which assumption?” I asked uselessly.
A voice came faintly from the other side of the door. “Get off my lawn!”
“Fine,” I groused and let myself out of the yard, making sure the tall gate was latched behind me.
Had I gotten anything from that so-called interview? I glanced sidelong at the Victorian. Was Mrs. Steinberg magic? I hadn't felt any when I'd probed.
I stopped in front of her house and pushed my senses out again. My skin tingled. There was something here, but… I squinched my brow. I picked up a gray stone from her garden and rolled it in my bare p
alm.
“Tell me,” I whispered.
The stone was of the earth, and it responded immediately, heating my hand. I bent my perceptions toward its smooth surface. “What is here?”
Joy bubbled in my heart and seemed to overflow, an effervescent heat. I felt myself lifting with the unbearable lightness of it, and then I realized I really was lifting, my toes barely touching the ground.
“What the—?”
The feeling evaporated. I slammed to the gravel drive and wobbled on my heels.
“Holy crap!” I whirled, the gravel crunching beneath me, and scanned the yard. The ground, the stones, the plants were filled with joy.
It wasn't a type of magic I’d encountered before. There was a simplicity, a purity to it. It was the kind of open heart that attracted people like bees to… roses.
And that totally didn't seem like grumpy Mrs. Steinberg.
But the stones didn't lie.
More confused than ever, I turned toward home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lenore crumpled the paper wrapper and tossed it in the bin beneath the bookstore’s counter. “So what’s next?”
We’d talked over what Mrs. Steinberg had told me. But my sister and I hadn’t come up with any answers, and I hadn’t told her about nearly going airborne. Now back in the solid, gray reality of the bookstore, I was starting to doubt it had happened.
“Next,” I said, “I make another batch of coffee hand scrub.” My coconut-oil-based scrub was selling like crazy during this dry winter.
“And Brayden?”
I flipped back my hair. “Is working today.”
She frowned. “It sure seems like he's been putting in a lot of hours lately. Or am I imagining it?”
“You're not imagining it.” Suddenly too warm, I tugged at the collar of my forest-green turtleneck. After our talk, I’d thought Brayden and I were okay, or at least moving toward okay. But was he using work to avoid me?
“He's gone through a lot,” she said gently. “I'm sure work is helping him cope.”
I hoped that was the only reason.
I left her bookstore and walked around the corner to the alley. The sky was a mass of unyielding gray. The clouds seemed to taunt Doyle with the possibility of snow, snow we desperately needed. Although the weatherman had forecasted another dry day, I found myself casting anxious looks upward too. No snow meant more than lost tourist dollars. It meant possible water rationing and fires in the summer.
My bootheels clacked, echoing in the lonely alley as I walked toward Ground. A second pair of boots pattered behind me, and I looked over my shoulder, saw no one.
It’s only an echo. I dug my keys from my purse and found the key to Ground's rear door, keeping it ready between my fingers. Speeding my pace, I hurried past the wooden exterior stairs. A tabby flicked his ears at me from his perch on the garbage bins.
I jammed my key in the metal door and rushed inside the kitchen. Relieved, I turned to pull the slowly moving door shut.
A man’s hand reached through and grasped the door's edge. The doorknob yanked from my grip.
I gasped. “We're closed.”
The hand pulled the door wider. Paul Neumark's acne-scarred face contorted with rage. “You should be closed for good.”
I took an involuntary step back. “Paul, what are you doing here?” Behind my back, I pushed keys between my fingers and closed my fist. “You tried to get a restraining order against me, remember?”
“Why did you do it? Was Lydia paying you?” He stepped inside. The door began to close behind him.
I skipped backward, fear arcing through my body. “Do what?”
“Kill Mathilda! She found out, didn't she?”
“Of course, I didn’t. And found out what?” I asked, bewildered.
He strode closer, and I scuttled backwards, heart thudding in my ears. Would I make it to my apartment if I ran up the stairs? I didn't think so. Weapons? The kitchen was sadly free of butcher knives, pepper spray, or medieval maces. There wasn't even a cast-iron skillet to bludgeon him with.
“You were working with Lydia,” he shouted, “spying on her.”
“I wasn't spying on Mathilda.” The door to the storage closet stood open. Cleaning supplies. What could I do with cleaning supplies? “I was her employer. Look, I'd like to find out what happened to her too. Why don't we sit down—?”
He grabbed my down vest and jerked me toward him.
My head snapped back.
He whirled me around. My hip hit the narrow table beside the storage closet.
“Ow!” I stumbled, kept moving. And then I was on my toes and my back was flat against the alleyway door.
“Paul, let me go!”
His bony hands tightened on my vest, his knuckles whitening. “I loved her!”
“You're not listening.” I jammed the tips of the keys into the soft skin beneath his chin.
He fell away, his grip on my vest loosening. I stomp-kicked him in the stomach.
Paul bounced off the door frame to the walk-in closet, straightened, swore.
Sudden, hot rage flowed up my spine and into my skull. Electricity flooded my skin, the hairs on my arms standing on end. “Go away!” I flung out my hand.
His body jerked sideways. He flew into the closet, and there was a crash.
The door slammed shut. Beside it, the broom clattered to the floor.
I stared, stunned.
The doorknob rattled.
I edged away from the closet.
The door shuddered, a relentless thump, as if Paul was hurling himself against it.
There was no lock on that door.
Shaken, I raced upstairs and into my apartment. I shut the door and locked it behind me. Hands trembling, I dug my phone from my purse, dropped it on the throw rug. I snatched it up and called Sheriff McCourt.
“What?”
“This is Jayce Bonheim—”
“I know.”
“Paul Neumark is downstairs. He attacked me. He's… locked in the closet.”
Her voice sharpened. “Are you in a safe place?”
“I'm upstairs in my apartment. The door is locked.”
“Stay there. I'm two minutes away.” She hung up.
I pressed my back against the door and slid down to sitting, my boots wrinkling the rug.
Picatrix trotted to me, her ears low. She hopped into my lap.
Roughly, I stroked the cat's silky, ebony fur. “So. That happened.”
And what had that been? Had I forced Paul into the closet? Had I somehow locked a closet that didn't have a lock? I remembered that electrical feeling. Magic? Had that been magic? If it had, this was a day of magical first, because that wasn't like any magic I'd done before.
I glanced toward the guest room, which had once held my magical tools. And why would new magic suddenly show up in my life now? It isn't as if I'd been pushing myself or practicing.
The cat draped herself awkwardly across my lap and purred.
Paul’s curses drifted up the stairs. Something thudded, and my shoulders jerked.
Footsteps thundered up the exterior stairs. “Sheriff's Department!” a familiar, male voice shouted.
I dislodged Picatrix, stood, and flung open the door.
Connor Hernandez and the sheriff stood on the landing.
“Where is he?” the sheriff asked.
I pointed to the door to the coffeeshop. “He's downstairs, in the storage closet.”
They pushed past me. The sheriff took the lead, and they jogged down the stairs.
At the top of the steps, I stood uncertainly, arms crossed, and stared into the wedge of Ground’s kitchen that was visible.
“Paul Neumark,” the sheriff said, “you are under arrest for the murders of Mathilda and Lydia Sinclair. You have the right to remain silent—”
“She killed them,” Paul bellowed. “That witch killed them!”
I shivered a
nd realized cold air was blowing through my apartment. I walked to the open door to the exterior stairs.
Two more sheriff's SUVs pulled into the alley. Uniformed officers emerged from the cars. They made their way to the alleyway door beneath me and knocked.
The metal door below creaked open.
Picatrix zipped past me and scampered down the wooden stairs to the alley. “Watch for cars,” I shouted after her.
Another sheriff's SUV wedged itself into the alley.
The cat scrambled around the vehicle and vanished over the opposite wall.
Two deputies walked a handcuffed Paul to an SUV. They stood him outside it and patted him down.
Footsteps sounded on the inside stairs, and I walked, feet leaden, to the open door.
Sheriff McCourt emerged carrying her broad-brimmed hat beneath one arm.
I backed into the room.
She clicked a device clipped to the collar of her thick, green-black jacket. “I'm recording this conversation.”
“Fine.” I motioned toward the kitchen table, and we sat.
Nudging aside the potted fern, she set her hat on the table. “Would you please state your name?”
“Jayce, Jayce Bonheim.”
“Thank you, Ms. Bonheim. Are you injured?”
I rubbed my arms. “I don't think so.”
“What happened to your vest?”
“My vest?” I looked down. A fluff of down poofed from a split seam at my collar. “Oh. That must have happened when he grabbed me.”
“When Mr. Neumark grabbed you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“He — Paul Neumark — must have been waiting outside, though I didn't see him. I walked into Ground’s kitchen, through the alley door. As it was closing, he pushed inside.” My voice shook at the memory.
I pressed my hands together on the table and noticed streaks of potting soil from the displaced fern. I swept it into my palm and rose. “He accused me of killing Mathilda, and he grabbed me. We struggled.” I brushed off my hands over the sink. “I jabbed him with my keys.” I made a quick, upward motion with my fist, and realized my keys were gone. Had I left them in the kitchen? “Somehow, he stumbled into the closet – I'm not sure how, and I shut the door.”
“Funny thing,” she said. “The closet door wasn't locked.”
Fey: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery (The Witches of Doyle Book 5) Page 14